According to the report, the airline originated in Shanghai and had 307 passengers on board. Witness accounts said the plane’s tail came off "and the aircraft left a trail of debris before coming to rest" beside the airport’s runway. Federal officials said the cause of the incident is not yet known. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that "the two people killed were Chinese citizens."

The report added that aside from being "the first-ever fatal accident involving the Boeing 777," the Asiana Airlines crash is "the first fatal commercial airline accident in the United States since a regional plane operated by Colgan Air crashed in New York in 2009."